There's a problem with armor actually (or the way railguns deal damage)

I got the answer of my question.

I built the Big Jim. Big Jim is a fat dude with no weapons, no shields and 140 plates of enhanced armor , the only meaning of his life is to get punched by bad guys. So I sent him pay a visit to a pirate base.

The result: First volley from the pirate space port, according to the graphics and sounds only maxos blasters, torpedoes and a tractor beam -> 101 components damaged, some armor components but also internal components. The pirate base had around 2000 firepower, versus the 2538 armor value + 40% damage reduction of Fat Jim.

So I draw the following conclusions: 1°) the problem isn't with the rail guns but with all the weapons, it's only more noticeable with the rail guns because they always hit the ship during combat 2°) internal components can be damaged before all the armor is burnt which isn't right at all (unless hit by gravity weapons of course) 3°) according to the values on top, the armor is treated like a "regular" component, it doesn't even absorb the damage it advertises (4 reactive per hit + 18 per plate). Else the ship wouldn't have got so many damaged components with the first volley.

Now I think I'm going to take a break until the betatest of this game is finished. It's really painful to start a game you would like to enjoy and discover a new bug every day.

2°) internal components can be damaged before all the armor is burnt which isn't right at all (unless hit by gravity weapons of course)

I disagree. Armor shouldn't be magical 2nd (or 3rd or 140th) skin, once a bit of armor is shot up on a side, it should let damage pass through to internal components. Aurora has a good armor system, imho. I don't think it could be adapted to Distant Worlds though. (Components add an "armor length", and every level of armor adds an "armor depth", weapons have to dig through the rectangular armor before getting to the components, but your ship could absolutely lose all its sensors because the enemy happened to hit that bit hard enough to dig through the armor, and still have your engines well covered by several untouched layers of armor.)

You may think it's not the most realistic way to model armor, and I don't entirely disagree, but this is how it has always worked in that game and it was fine. Having armor components being just some generic crap, randomly hit and probably destroyed with a single hit completely kills the game.

Now I wonder how likely it is that an armor component will be destroyed when hit compared to a non-armor component.

Also can a slow weapon that does high damage (e.g. a torpedo) destroy multiple components at once? If not, it suggests that rapid fire weapons like blasters will take down a ship faster once shields are down, assuming reactive rating is not a major factor.

"Now I wonder how likely it is that an armor component will be destroyed when hit compared to a non-armor component."

if there is a chance for armor take the damage before a component how does that work ?

lets say the chance for hitting thrugh armor is 50% does the cumulated chance go in a row like p= 0,5*0,5*...=c^N (p=prob to hit component, c=chance for hit through one piece, N=Number of Armor components)

or does that event only happen once( which would speak for those who only build one armor component in their ships)

We'll investigate to make sure that nothing "broke" with armor, but my best guess is just that the addition of gravitic weapons and the buff to rail guns are making it seem less useful, when it's actual effect has not changed.

I'll post a more detailed explanation of how armor is designed to work ASAP.

If that can help I have a few game saves corresponding to the problems.

One with a fleet of armored cruisers that attacked a pirate base + a few pirate ships. Only railguns were involved, not a single gravity weapon AFAIK, and several of them have damaged internal components with very few or not a single armor plate damaged. Another before the Big Jim's launch, and yet another when it's being beaten by the pirate station, with the 101 components damaged and a lot of intact armor still there.